The huge fashion store Primark sacked three of its suppliers last week after an investigation for the BBC’s Panorama and The Observer uncovered children labouring in Indian refugee camps to produce some of its cheapest garments. In this report from Tamil Nadu, India, The Observor’s Dan McDougall reveals the brutal reality of a supply chain that sees children as young as 11 sewing T-shirts which cost shoppers just a few pounds to buy on high streets across Britain.
Its unrivalled success took the competition by surprise as it won over both the high-street shopper and the diehard fashionista with its simple philosophy: high on style, low on price.
When Primark was launched, its flagship store in London’s Oxford Street was besieged by stampeding bargain-hunters and sold more than a million garments in its first 10 days. The opening drew a bigger crowd than that managed by Topshop’s much-hyped launch of its Kate Moss collection, which featured the supermodel herself moodily posing in its windows. Fashion bible Vogue gave a Primark jacket high-end credibility.
Last week, in an announcement that effectively pre-empted publication by The Observer of this investigation, Primark announced it had sacked three of its clothing suppliers in India after being told by the BBC’s Panorama programme of evidence that it was subcontracting labour to child workers. The investigation found that in the refugee camps of southern India young children had been working long hours in foul conditions to sew the designs that will see, at current growth rates, Primark eclipse Marks & Spencer as Britain’s biggest mass-market fashion retailer by 2009, taking £1 of every £10 spent on clothing in the UK.
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